I just purchased a 2nd Balance and received it today. I registered an account just to discuss it. Thus far, I'm thrilled with the results. The sound is dramatically improved - more than I even expected. No matter how smart a speaker is, there's really no substitute for good, old-fashioned stereo. 

A few software quirks: Optimal doesn't show as being selected, even though that's what I've chosen every time. It doesn't currently show any sound mode selected. It's also been a bit finicky about the room compensation. I've been trying out Apple Music via Airplay as well as Spotify Connect, and both work perfectly. 

If anyone wants to know anything specific, I'd be happy to help. I'm curious about connecting them together via ethernet - I wonder if that will improve anything? I don't plan to try line-in as I don't use traditional sources anymore. I'm 100% streaming. 

BeoCom 1401 wrote:

I registered an account just to discuss it.

Appreciate the welcome. I hope others take the plunge on a stereo pair soon. I would love to know if I'm alone in seeing some of the weirdness I'm experiencing. Optimal is never shown as selected, you can't really name the speakers as a pair (each speaker has it's own name, but the pair takes the name of one of the two), and I'm still getting errors with room compensation. 

But I'm still loving the sound. If anyone else has a stereo pair of Balance or Level set up, it would be great to discuss. Curious if I should toe these in like traditional speakers, or keep them facing completely straight ahead because of the design. 

Yes, please do document your experience!  For what it's worth, the photo that B&O uses on their website shows a stereo pair facing directly front: https://www.bang-olufsen.com/en/us/speakers/beosound-balance-stereo-set , page down.  

The argument for toeing them in is that tweeter directivity will give you a more even frequency response, and you'll also have improved left/right localization/soundstage.  But the front side has 2 full-range drivers and the tweeter, and those left/right full-rangers are already slightly toed out -- they appear to follow the radius of the cylinder, not be inset flat -- which makes perfect sense given that the speaker was intended to be a stereo source from a single enclosure.  Therefore... ... ...

The argument against toeing them in is that with the rear full-rangers enlarging the sound field, because the speaker was specifically designed for placement up against a wall, a whole lot of incoherent-no-matter-how-they-adjust-it sound is floating around.  So whether soundstage is improved because toe-in moves the side-wall reflection just doesn't matter.  I would bet that any Active Room Compensation algorithm will work best with a known perpendicular surface, because in-phase and out-of-phase will vary by frequency, so don't left and right rear drivers *already* have different EQ curves & delays?  Complicate that with a stereo pair interfering with each other... yikes!  Do they tell you to re-run the compensation setup with both speakers active?  (Knowing nothing, I bet not!)  Maybe some engineer would also auto-adjust the "inner 2" drivers of each speaker down in volume when doing stereo pairing, to reduce the "room filling" effect which becomes less desirable when left/right are trying to create a stereo image?

Worse, the app's left/front/right steering control must use the opposing set of drivers to cancel out sound rather than expand the sound field, which will be really weird in stereo!  This product definitely needs a Technical Sound Guide to tell us what's actually going on, but product manuals are not B&O's forte, both by design/execution & (I believe) by intent.  Where does "trade secret" end and "hocus pocus" begin?  Definitely looking forward to your impressions and very much hope you try it both ways yourself.

@BeoCom 1401

Thanks for your posts - that is eaxactly what I hoped for, when starting the thread.

I guess there are more updates to come, that will improve the behaviour and possibilities of the stereoset/setup.

By the way, the picture, that I posted above, indicates that you actually can name the pair of speaker.

Please keep us posted about your findings.

MM

I see step 6 listed above, but that has not been my experience thus far. The left speaker is the name of the pair. I can name left and right individually, but whatever I name the left becomes the name of the pair. It doesn't affect the performance, obviously, but it's strange. 

Hopefully not being able to select Optimal isn't affecting anything. I can't tell because the sound doesn't change whether I select it or not. 

So still no one that has tried stereo paring on Balance with line-in? I have a refurbished Beogram 4002 connected to a Balance with line-in and it sounds amazing, but nothing beats stereo. I will however not spend 20500 norwegian kroner without being sure it actually works. 

Sorry that I seem to be the only person around who actually owns 2 Balances. I just don't own any legacy sources to test for you.